TK Maxx to open Piccadilly superstore on Trocadero site five years after West End snub

On the up: the Trocadero will be home to flats, a hotel and a rooftop bar as well as the new TK Maxx Alex Lentati

Tk Maxx is set to open a superstore in Piccadilly, five years after the Crown Estate blocked it from the West End because it was “not posh enough”.

The owner of the Trocadero wants the discount designer store to occupy one of two huge new units in the building, which it is making available for lease through Savills.

TK Maxx sells “last season’s styles” at discounts of up to 60 per cent. If it does open on Piccadilly Circus, it will mark a major reversal of fortunes.

In 2009 Criterion Capital, which owns the Trocadero, signed a deal with TK Maxx to open a flagship store in another of its properties — a long-vacant former Zavvi store on Piccadilly Circus where the Crown Estate was freeholder.

But the Crown Estate, which manages a huge property portfolio on behalf of the Queen, said the discount chain did not fit with its policy of letting to “high class” retailers on its properties on Regent Street and St James’s.

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This time, however, Criterion Capital owns the freehold, so it believes the Crown Estate can do nothing to block the move.

One source said: “The gentrification of Regent Street cannot go on in perpetuity through the entire West End. At some point it has to give way to something a bit more high street.

“If you look at Oxford Street you have this huge great Primark just a few hundred yards from Selfridge’s so these things can live hand in hand.”

Asif Aziz, chief executive of Criterion Capital, said: “Following the success of the Crown Estate in re-asserting Regent Street as a flagship retail destination, we are seeing a ripple effect into Piccadilly. This presents us with an opportunity to reposition the Trocadero in response to growing interest from national and international retailers.”

Criterion Capital has owned the Trocadero since 2005, when the amusement arcade which occupied much of the building closed down.

It has created two major shop units on the ground floor, one of 42,000 sq ft and one of 16,000 sq ft, replacing a mall of smaller outlets.

There will also be eight apartments on the lower level, while the upper seven floors are being turned into a 583-room Japanese-style pod hotel with a public rooftop bar. The Crown Estate would not comment.